Sugar Grove likely to keep discounting builder fees
Sugar Grove is likely to continue offering house builders a break on permit and impact fees to house builders for a fourth year.
This time the village expects to see a lot more interest, according to community development director Rich Young.
“Up until this year, we had limited success,” he said, adding that the village had issued a “handful” of permits.
But building activity has increased this year with village issuing 20 permits so far for new houses, mostly in the Prairie Glen subdivision.
The incentives were designed to spur building in subdivisions left unfinished by developers who went out of business during the 2008 recession and housing-market crash.
Under the proposal for next year, the village would calculate the fees for construction of a house. A builder or developer would only have to pay up to $16,500 per house.
Twenty permits is a far cry from the go-go days of the late 1990s and early 2000s, when Sugar Grove was issuing as many as 377 housing permits a year. For four years in a row, it added at least 1,000 people to the town.
In Sugar Grove, there are 350 to 400 unbuilt improved lots and about 3,500 unimproved lots, according to village administrator Brent Eichelberger.
Improved lots are graded and may have items such as utilities and basic roads in place.
“It is nice to see houses going up again,” Trustee Kevin Geary said.
The board discussed the proposal at Tuesday’s meeting and will vote on the ordinance Oct. 15.